Being in the Main a Blog of the Life and Times of the Wood, Robertson, Pilling, McLoone, Johnson, and Bates Families

Thursday, March 26, 2015

The View From the Bridge - a reflectiion

I read that there are 7 Olivier Award Nominations for A View from the Bridge.

Eddie, the tragic hero

I continued my reading.

I wanted to get a head start with the play tonight. I went to Wiki and when I was through there, I clicked on some other links, each time being just a little bit more fascinated by what I was reading. It seems that Elia Kazan and Arthur Miller collaborated on a script – both of them interested in writing about the waterfront. When they separated, Kazan went off to produce the motion picture, On the Waterfront. Miller kept working on his failed script, The View from the Bridge, refining it until it was a play that audiences wanted to see.

Tonight’s play ended with a death, but the death was less visual. We didn’t see a stabbing as it happens in other versions of this play. But if you saw the play tonight, you will know that in this case seeing less, turned out to be seeing more.

Other bits of trivia that you might not know?

This was the first play in America where there was an actor to actor kiss – not of passion but of violence.

And a number of times I was aware of the immigration theme. This was more than artful. It peeled away the layers until I felt as though I was seeing to the core of the problems of the 1950’s.

And the depth of needing respect? All of the threads converged at the last moments of the play over respect. Painful.

And the power in the incident of Marko raising the chair from a crouching position to over his head. What a wonderful play. I hope Duncan made some money over seeing that film. At the end I was thinking to myself … whoops, I think this play is worse than Medea when it comes to taking complicated themes and laying them bare before the audience.

3 comments:

yes, Duncan and I (and Katie) all went. No intermission, so Duncan was deprived of the pizza slice i said he could get at the intermission. The blood rain scene was amazing. and so was the awful scene with them sitting around talking about sardines and oranges. Like watching paint dry, but worse. the 'soundscape' was amazing...

For some reason the idea of the Greek chorus being a "good" lawyer -- that made me laugh inside.

Did you tell Duncan that you were in a Greek play, once?

And this idea of the Greek chorus? Check with him and see if he remembers the Greek chorus in the musical -- whoops have forgotten the name of it. Wanted to call it Elle, but that is not right. Yes, Legally Blonde. Now there was a Greek chorus.

I am still thinking about this play -- the next day. We saw a video where the director told us about his idea of staging the play in an unusual wayl He said the play is not entertainment. That is what T.V. is for. He said that the theatre is to surprise you.

Now the next day, I am still being surprised. What did you think, Rebecca, about the hint of, if not incest, of turning the daughter into his handmaiden. She would run to get him a drink, to light his cigar, and if she saw he walking towards her a block away and she could tell he was sad, she would determine to make him happy, to cheer him up. What about her inability to commit to marriage with Rodolpho, since it would make Eddie unhappy. And how about him giving her advice on how to dress, how to walk, what to wear (and what not to wear). So subtle -- the placement of all of this. And even Alphieri's comment at the end smoothed over all of this saying, the wonderful thing about Eddie was how open he was, when perhaps his life would have been better if it had only been half open.

Well, I hope the surprises can die down and I can quit thinking about the play and get on to studying up for the next one.